Final Battle Tactics (c. 2001)

posted on 26 May 2024 by Broken Muse

Our first foray into TTRPGs was, from what we know, pretty typical. Two children, a piece of paper, and a world of imagination. It sounds so very clichéd. And it was. I was a halfling archer, with a magic bow that could shoot magic arrows. We adventured into the woods and fought goblins. Nothing grand, but it sparked a new concept for us. Something we hadn’t considered before; video games without video games. Of course, we would talk about other games, shows, and movies and discuss what neat abilities were in those. After two weeks, it was over. We never saw our first GM again and never could thank him for everything he did and what it all led to. So I dedicate this series of retrospectives on Final Battle as follows:

To Daniel. Thank you for ignoring what our teacher wanted us to be to each other. And thank you for showing us a doorway towards who we could be instead.

A note: this retrospective is more about the history of Final Battle. A part of that history is the ideas and interesting mechanics we have created over time as a result. We won’t get into the nitty-gritty of the rules here.

As a child, killing time at Walmart while my mother did errands was practically a career. We read through a lot of strategy guides while we were there. Tons of them. Most of the games we would never play. But one grabbed us, and we couldn’t tear ourselves away from it. It took several visits, but we did end up reading through the entire 200-ish page strategy guide. The game? Final Fantasy Tactics. We were obsessed! It would be some time (memories of this period are hazy at best) before we got our hands on a copy. The Greatest Hits edition, to be exact. We didn’t have a PlayStation, so we couldn’t play the game. What we did have was the instruction manual it came with, and it brought with it much inspiration.

Looking up the game online, we tried to learn as much as we could. We stumbled upon the bible of the North American version: The Battle Mechanics Guide (BMG). The BMG was a detailed breakdown of the mathematics of Final Fantasy Tactics. Every attack, every spell, every single piece of the game math laid out. A spark was born: we wanted to play Final Fantasy Tactics without needing a PlayStation. Video games without video games.

It started with some formulas, cribbed from the BMG, and they were added to our school-issued TI-85. Then prompts, battle menus. A recreation of the game’s mechanics in a calculator. We shared this in our small social circle, and we ran the first instance of Final Battle before it was Final Battle. Our players were a special infiltration team made up of a Samurai, a Monk, and a Geomancer. Their mission was to raid a stronghold to plant evidence of wrongdoings. This would spark a larger war which would benefit their employer, an arms dealer. It was clunky, and slow, and combat was 99% of the substance. A lot of it was tapping at our calculators and reading off numbers. Our battle map was several chessboards taped together into a large folding field. We used wooden blocks and styrofoam for elevation. A random assortment of board game pieces were our tokens. It wasn’t pretty, but when it ended, we all wanted more. As we were wrapping up, a player asked us a question. It seemed so simple, but it would start a wildfire in our imaginations. “Can I play as Cloud, but equip and use Materia?”

Final Battle (Tactics), c. 2001

That innocuous question led to the idea: what if we could include Final Fantasy 7’s Materia? Why not other Final Fantasy games? Why not other non-Final Fantasy games? What about anime? Or movies? Or books? This started a spiral of thinking: we could include anything from anywhere. This would mean we could play a game that could take place anywhere. This was the true start of Final Battle. A lifetime of making up rules for imaginary games finally came to fruition. The first instance of Final Battle still used Final Fantasy Tactics as a basis. It would involve the same party, save one who had gotten arrested. The party would meet a mysterious stranger from another world with a message and a mission. All the stats and math continued to come from the BMG. Some changes were made, of course for the new things we were adding.

(AN: A casual knowledge of Final Fantasy Tactics may help parse out some of the game terminology.)

Classes and Resources

The real major change was in Classes. Being Class-oriented, we had to expand the list to be able to include more variety. This led to a decision to emphasize class archetypes, with other classes being a sub-class of each one. This resulted in fewer main classes, but several new options for each were available. This would evolve into the Resource system, something that would stick around. Each class had a pool they used to fuel their Action Abilities, and all sub-classes of that class used the same pool. A lot of sub-classes also shared similar Support, Reaction, and Movement Abilities. We did try to create a unique Action Ability to compensate. We would like no judgment for some of these, whose inspiration is very obvious, but we will not state.

Knights used Battle Points as their resource, which recovered when dealing damage. Sub-classes included Falcon Knight (whose Falconer Ability allowed them to send their trained pet to battle with them) and Breaker (whose Break Ability came from the Knight’s default Action Ability, Battle Skill).

Archers, ranged fighters, relied on Quantity, their supply of ammunition, as their resource. This made them a costly class with powerful options. The Gunslinger (who could use their Trick Shot Ability to deal despite enemy defenses) and Black Archer (who used stealth to move from shadow to shadow and poison their arrows) were some of the sub-classes it had.

Monks specialized in unarmed fighting. They could gather Ki and use special techniques. Their weakness is that they had smaller pools. This was remedied by the ability to generate Ki at will. This meant they would need more turns to use bigger flashier attacks in succession. Sub-classes included the Z Fighter (with their anime-inspired Energy Wave Ability drawing inspiration from an obvious source) and Shotokan (which used the same named Shotokan Ability, which was also from an obvious inspiration).

Priest, Wizard, Time Mage, Summoner, Oracle, Geomancer, and Calculator were all combined into one class: Mage. They used the classic Magic Points as their resource and had the most sub-classes! The expected sub-classes such as Black Mage (elemental), White Mage (healing), Geomancer (terrain-based geomancy), and Blue Mage (enemy attacks) were all included. The Materia Mage (Materia using spellcasters whose spells could be equipped and unequipped from their accessory slot) was added as well.

Thieves were given Trick Points as their resource. Like Battle Points, they can be regenerated in combat by flanking enemies. The sub-classes here included Pickpocket (which could use the standard Steal Ability) and Trapper (which could use the Trap Ability to leave things on the battlefield for their enemies).

Lancers had Breath as their resource, based on their Dragoon origins. Breath regenerated on its own over time based on how many actions they take in combat. They could speed it up by taking fewer actions in a turn. Most of their sub-classes were references to types of dragons with elemental-themed talents such as Frost (ice), Blaze (fire), and Skye (lightning) were among the basic types of Dragoons.

Samurai were unique in that they had unlimited resources. Charge was a pool from 0% to 100%, which would accumulate after an Ability was used. This could be sped up by spending actions. The outcome was modified by the charge amount at the time it was unleashed. Some sub-classes included The Ronin (who can quickly change their weapons mid-combat with the Bladeswap Ability) and the Swordcaller (who was built on the original Samurai class and used the Draw Out Ability to break weapons and draw their inner spirits out).

Ninja possessed Ninpo, a reference to a childhood franchise. Ninpo, generated by landing the finishing blow on an enemy, had no default upper limit. This allowed the stockpiling of Ninpo to be unleashed when the time was right. The Ninja sub-classes include Hyabusa (using their Ninjutsu to create a variety of magical effects focusing on fire and shadows) and Shadow (capable of throwing weapons as well as items with the Throw Ability).

Bard and Dancer were combined into the Performer. They relied on Beats, which were generated as weaker Abilities were used. They could then spend the accumulated Beats for stronger Abilities. The sub-classes for Performer included Bard and Dancer, which recreated the original classes, as well as the Thrasher (whose Metal Ability could create pyrotechnic and electrical effects on the battlefield).

Character Abilities

The observant of you may notice there are some classes which were not included in the above list. That is actually because other changes occurred with those.

The Squire and Chemist were removed as classes. Their Basic Skill and Item Abilities were made available to all characters. This meant all characters started with both as starting options. The Equip Axes and Monster Skill Support Abilities were removed for balance purposes.

Mediator was also removed, mostly because a lot of its skills no one had an interest in learning. Since we lacked any kind of Skill system for challenges, we opted to convert the Talk Ability. Like Basic Skill and Item, characters could use it between combats to affect either side. It remained very under-utilized for the most part.

Mimes were removed entirely as they were awkward to deal with. We did attempt to figure them out, but no one at the table showed interest in them, so we dropped it. A modern look back tells me we were fools entirely and should have kept it.

With all of these options, we did increase the limits on equipped Abilities. The original limits were two Actions and one each of Support, Reaction, and Movement. We expanded this to allow for three Actions, and two each of Support, Reaction, and Movement. We did include some stipulations to promote variety. For instance, only two Action Abilities from the same main Class can be equipped at a time. Support and Movement Abilities did stack, but would need to be learned twice. Only one Reaction can be triggered at a time, making it more prudent for them to have different triggers.

This all led us to reassess all the default Classes and Abilities. We focused on building new sub-classes as individuals, not as part of a larger whole. This was to focus on sub-classes being taken alone and not as part of a combination. It became labor intensive but also revealed holes in our ideas. This is important for our next point, which we’ll refer to as Import Problems. There would be a lot of those.

Import Problems

A modern phrase for an old issue. Import Problems were the point at which many of these Final Battle ideas would start to fail. When we attempted to bring in something either too complex or worse, too simple. Having a hard time defining it within the framework we had formed showed our flaws. This is the Import Problem. This particular iteration of Final Battle had a lot of Import Problems.

The BMG included math for all the Abilities found in Final Fantasy Tactics. We could find a formula close enough to what we needed and start from there. With so many examples we didn’t have a single issue with variety, but we did with scaling. Adjusting a formula by small amounts proved tricky. And the adjustments weren’t vast enough to create real variety. We could point to five or six different Abilities that dealt roughly the same damage. The only changes were the element of damage. because they used the same formula. We reached what we like to call, critical boredom. The point at which you use Fire, with any of your three Fire attacks. All of which are the same attack when you dig deep enough. We were practically rewriting the same attack with a new name. Also, many sub-classes had the same Support, Reaction, and Movement Abilities. This combined with how we allowed stacking, led to many complications.

This was the ultimate problem of this version of Final Battle. The first handful of sessions were great, but the players stopped mixing and matching. Instead, they settled into their favorite combinations. The fights, again 99% of the substance, boiled down to mashing the same buttons on the calculator. Hoping the players got bigger numbers before the monsters did. It was official: Final Battle needed more work.